Catch Her If You Can (9 page)

“So I’ll see you when I see you.”

“See you when I see you,” I echoed.

I disconnected, missing Mitch and wondering what the heck I would do with Charlie for the next few days. He could only float and drink for so long, and I really did need to get caught up on some things

Luckily, inspiration came some hours later via another phone call, this one from Pen. “I know you said you weren’t interested in attending the quarterly meeting of Scientists Against Biospheric Exploitation with me, Samantha, but our guest speaker had to cancel and I’m on the agenda instead. I’m going to talk about the silicon-wrapped carbon sensor we evaluated. The science wasn’t quite there yet, but the theory behind it holds great promise.”

I remembered that gizmo. All too well. Damned thing was supposed to measure carbon dioxide levels in a variety of extreme environments and transmit a warning signal when they reached danger levels. Need I say that it failed to perform as promised? Or that the test gave me the headache from hell?

“Sorry, Pen. I’ve got too much to do tomorrow.”

“Are you sure? The Smokehouse is catering supper after the lecture,” she added slyly.

Damn! The woman knows me too well. Carbon dioxide levels left me cold. Ribs dripping with the Smokehouse’s secret sauce had me salivating on the spot.

I itched to ask how Scientists Against Biospheric Exploitation could square their rigid anti-emission standards with meat charred over nasty, smoke-spewing charcoal but knew better than to open that door. Pen’s explanation would leave me numb. So would tomorrow afternoon’s lecture. I can take her learned discourse in small doses. Two hours’ worth would roll my eyes back in my head.

A devious thought snuck in. I love a messy, dripping rack of ribs. And unless Charlie’s changed dramatically since our divorce, he inhales them whole.

My glance shot to the sliding glass doors again. Charlie was downing his third—fourth?—beer. A Doritos bag lay crumpled beside the empty pizza carton. At this rate, he’d clean me out of both food and funds before he hit the road again.

“I have a guest visiting who might be interested in attending the meeting with you, Pen.”

Especially if I told him there were ribs involved.

“Can I call you back in a few minutes?”

“By all means.”

 

SO call me evil. Immoral. Depraved.

I’m not ashamed to admit I felt nothing but glee when Pen drove up the following afternoon and I escorted Charlie out to her car to make the introductions. He did a double take when he took in her sturdy sandals and multilayers of shapeless linen. A third take when he spotted the long back feather spearing through her bun.

“I . . . Er . . .”

He threw me a helpless look. I ignored it.

“Have fun, you two.”

I slammed the car door before he could escape and watched them drive off.

 

CHARLIE got even with me the next day. Big time. Although it wasn’t
totally
his fault he set fire to the building that houses FST-3’s home offices.

I should have known better than to take him to work with me. But it was either that or give him a key to my apartment. I didn’t mind him loafing around the place but wasn’t all that anxious to have him poking through my stuff. I also nursed this secret hope he might buddy up with Sergeant Cassidy and spend the rest of his enforced stay in El Paso with his new pal.

Thus I poked him in the shoulder at oh-dark-thirty Monday morning.

“Up and at ’em, Charlie.”

“Huh?”

“I have to go to work. I thought you might want to come along and see what I do.”

Bleary eyed, he blinked several times. “What time is it?”

“Almost six thirty.”

“In the
morning
?”

“Com’on, you hit the shower and get dressed. I’ll make coffee.”

When he emerged I shoved a travel mug and a toasted bagel at him. “You’ll have to eat it on the way.”

I crammed on my patrol cap and slung my purse strap over my shoulder. Charlie’s brows lifted as his gaze skimmed from my cap to my combat boots.

“That’s some change from your last work uniform, babe.”

“No kidding.”

My previous duty uniform consisted of fishnet stockings, a flounced miniskirt, ruffled panties, and an off-the-shoulder peasant blouse.
Way
off the shoulder. Some male’s fantasized vision of what a Parisian cocktail waitress should sashay around in. Now I clump around in boots and ABUs. That kind of uniform change takes a considerable psychological adjustment.

“So how do you like being a soldier?” Charlie asked as I shooed him out the door.

“Soldiers are Army. I’m Air Force.”

“So how do you like it?”

Tough question. To tell the truth, officer training school was a severe shock to my psyche. Convinced I’d made the worst mistake in a life already riddled with errors in judgment, I almost quit several times. Each time, the stubborn streak my mother claims I was born with would kick in.

Same with my first months in uniform. Talk about your fish out of water! If Dr. J hadn’t been as new to DARPA as I was myself, I’m sure I would have been shown the door. But he suffered through the first year with me as I slowly got the hang of things.

FST-3 is the real reason I’ve stuck it out this long. I don’t want to get all mushy here but . . . Well . . . There’s really something to this brotherhood-of-arms business. Even among REMFs. That’s the short version of a less-than-polite term for rear echelon mother f . . . Er, you get the picture. My team and I don’t tote sub-machine guns or strap ourselves into the cockpit of an F-22. But each of us believes deep down in our hearts that we’re actually contributing to the safety and security of our nation by testing items that might someday improve the capability of our troops in combat. Why the heck else would we spend weeks out at Dry Springs, with only each other for company?

Sounds corny, I know. Definitely not something I wanted to articulate to Charlie at this ungodly hour of the morning. Instead, I shrugged and hooked on my seat belt.

“The Air Force and I have our occasional differences,” I said with magnificent understatement. “I like being in charge, though.”

Grinning, Charlie folded a stick of Big Red into his mouth. “You always did, babe.”

 

I was still trying to decide how to take that when we drove through the gates of Fort Bliss.

Don’t be fooled by the name. Bliss refers to the individual the fort was named for, not necessarily the activities that take place here every day. At various points in its history Fort Bliss served as an infantry outpost, a cavalry post, and an airfield for the Army’s early aviation efforts. It’s since grown into a major training, mobilization, and deployment center, with more than a million acres of test range straddling the Texas/New Mexico border. That makes it bigger than the state of Rhode Island.

And twice as busy! At any hour of the day or night there are live-fire exercises going on out on the range, troops assembling in the mobilization center, and thousands of military and civilian personnel going about their business—including my team of dedicated professionals.

FST-3 occupies a suite of offices in the historic section of the post. Our ’30s-era building looks old and interesting on the outside. Inside it’s just old. Various post commanders have eked out precious maintenance dollars for upkeep and renovation over the years. The overhead pipes are now concealed by acoustical tile and the johns flush on a more or less regular basis, but the wooden floors still creak and the HVAC system can’t take the strain of a hot summer day in West Texas. I’ve brought this to the deputy post commander’s attention on several occasions, along with repeated requests for more office space. Like Dr. J, Colonel Roberts also takes a loooong time to return my calls.

Despite my complaints, though, ten days out at Chuville always makes our Depression-era building seem like the height of luxury. This morning was no exception. I gazed fondly at the two-story wooden edifice as I angled the Sebring into the parking lot across the street.

My assigned parking space is close to a side entrance but I walked Charlie around to the front of the building to sign him in and get a visitor’s pass. Security on post has tightened in response to world conditions. All of us on FST-3 heartily concur with the more stringent controls. Especially since they also help deter attacks by disgruntled inventors whose babies we’ve rejected. No small consideration when you consider some of the nuts we’ve dealt with.

My plan to keep Charlie busy and out of my hair appeared to work when I introduced him to Sergeant Cassidy at our regular morning confab. My whole team crams into my cubbyhole of an office at the start of each workday to review the status of ongoing projects and evaluate new submissions for possible field tests. Some of those submissions are so out there we groan and/or howl with laughter. Or in Pen’s case, whinny like a bee-stung mare.

This morning was no different. We had the preliminary reports from our on-site tests to review and a stack of new submissions. I eyed the pile, sighed, and put off the inevitable long enough to introduce Charlie. He gave Pen a wary nod. Blinked at the neon image of Bobby Fischer on Dennis O’Reilly’s perpetual black T-shirt. Offered a hesitant hand to Rocky, who’d attired himself for our return to civilization in a white short-sleeved shirt, black tie, and pale blue pinstriped seersucker slacks.

As I’d hoped, Charlie and Noel recognized kindred spirits in each other. So much so that when Noel requested two hours for mandatory physical fitness training, he suggested he take Charlie to the gym with him. I gave him four hours. Two would barely break Noel out in a sweat. He racks up his PT points by doing, oh, a thousand or so sit-ups before taking every machine at the gym to the max. And four hours would keep Charlie out of the way while I waded through the piles on my desk.

“How about you check on whether you can accept the reward while we’re at the gym?” my ex asked hopefully. When Noel added his endorsement, I promised to call the Fort Bliss legal office. Better to start at this level and get a military lawyer’s input before approaching the scientific properties and patent attorneys at headquarters.

I made the call and set up an appointment for three that afternoon. When Charlie and Noel returned from the gym they were disappointed I didn’t have an answer. Dennis O’Reilly assuaged their disappointment by taking them to lunch at Papa Leone’s, his favorite Italian place. Then, much to the amazement of the rest of the team, my big, brawny ex clicked with our nervous little test engineer.

I can’t imagine two more dissimilar personalities. Or what in the
heck
they would have in common. Yet when I poked my head into Rocky’s cubicle to see what they were up to, there was Dr. Brian Balboa attempting to explain in layman’s terms a small square object the inventor had labeled an Amorphic Cube. According to the teenage tinkerer who put it together, his cube could assume any shape with the flick of a switch.

Clearly intrigued with the concept, Charlie glanced up at me. “Have you seen this thingamajig, Sam?”

“I read the specs.” Mostly. “Haven’t seen it in operation yet.”

“Rocky here says it can go flat as a dime or sprout wings or maybe even shape itself into a spare part for a tank or Humvee.”

The speculative look in his eyes told me exactly what he was thinking. I have to admit I was thinking the same thing. But I resisted the temptation to beg Rocky to morph the cube into a spare part for a Ford F-150 that would whisk Charlie Spade out of my life again.

“I ran a preliminary test on the device to see if it merited a full field evaluation,” Rocky informed us both. “The results were disappointing.”

“Yeah?” Charlie worked his Big Red and turned the cube over and over in his hands. “Disappointing how?”

Struggling to explain in a way he—and I—would understand, Rocky held up a wand-type device.

“The signals from this control unit travel only a short distance. We would have to boost their power considerably to make the Amorphic Cube viable for battlefield conditions.”

“Hey, maybe I could help with that. I’m pretty good at fiddling around with video game controls.”

Hastily, I intervened. “That isn’t a game unit. It’s a highly sophisticated device submitted for evaluation by the Department of Defense.”

“Yeah, but I tried this trick I know on one of my game controls when it started to die on me. All I had to do to power up the signal was . . .”

“Listen to me, Charlie,” I said sternly. “We don’t do ‘tricks.’ We’re required to adhere to strict test protocols.”

Rocky’s brows soared. Ignoring his look of utter amazement at hearing me echo the strictures he’d preached at me so often, I asked him to step into my office for a minute.

“I need you to interpret some of the language in your draft report on Snoopy SNFIR.”

I’ve made some serious errors in judgment in my life. Hitting the Tunnel of Love Drive Thru wedding chapel with Charlie Spade was one. Leaving him alone with that little gadget was another.

He’s dumb, but not stupid. He also has a lively sense of curiosity. And, as he’d pointed out, he’s really good with video games. So I should have anticipated that he would jimmy open the cube’s control unit, insert a tiny strip of silver-backed chewing gum paper, and plug the unit into an electrical outlet.

What neither of us anticipated were the sparks that spewed from the socket mere moments later.

“Holy crap!”

His startled shout brought my entire team on the run. To our dismay, we discovered that Charlie’s homemade booster had ignited an electrical fire that now raced up our ’30s-era wiring.

I grabbed the closest extinguisher and aimed foam at the sparking flames. Noel ripped some fiberboard away with his bare hands so the suppressant could get to the shorting wires. Rocky and Charlie scrambled to shove the furniture aside. Our combined efforts kept the papers and assorted objects in Rocky’s cubicle from incinerating. Unfortunately, we weren’t quick enough to keep the overhead sprinklers from going off.